Recent kwiples

Thursday 21st of January 2021

Kwiple.com Available without prescription™ © 2015 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism It is a frame of mind, not a set of ideas. Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy © 2021 Kwiple.com
Authoritarianism A number of elements contribute to authoritarian predispositions in lower-class individuals. Low education, low participation in political or voluntary organizations of any type, little reading, isolated occupations, economic insecurity, and authoritarian family patterns are some of the most important. These elements are interrelated, but they are by no means identical. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus We want them infected. Paul Elias Alexander, Trump's chosen science adviser, advocating inducing herd immunity by letting all non-high-risk groups catch COVID © 2021 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Donald Trump, urging Georgia's secratary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to "recalculate" Georgia's thrice-audited election returns to give him a one-vote margin of victory in an election in which over 5,000,000 people voted, which he believes would be credible © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The belief that a very high level of participation is always good for democracy is not valid. As the events of the 1930s in Germany demonstrated … an increase in the level of participation may reflect the decline  of social cohesion and the breakdown of the democratic process; whereas a stable democracy may rest on the general belief that the outcome of an election will not make too great a difference in society. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy The stability of any given democracy depends not only on economic develop- ment but also upon the effectiveness and the legitimacy of its political system. Effectiveness means actual performance, the extent to which the system satisfies the basic functions of government as most of the population and such powerful groups within it as big business or the armed foreces see them. Legitimacy involves the capacity of the system to engender and maintain the belief that the existing political institutions are the most appropriate ones for the society. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Democracy A stable democracy requires a situation in which all the major political parties include supporters from many segments of the population. A system in which the support of different parties corresponds too closely to basic social divisions cannot continue on a democratic basis, for it reflects a state of conflcit so intense and clear cut as to rule out compromise. Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man © 2021 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Queens man impeached — — — — — Former Jamaica Estates resident Donald Trump was impeached Wednesday by the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the third president to be impeached in United States history — and the first from Queens. headline and lead, Queens Daily Eagle, December 19, 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Impeachment Queens man impeached — again — — — — — A Queens-born real estate developer made history Wednesday when he became the first U.S. president ever impeached twice by the House of Representatives. headline and lead, Queens Daily Eagle, January 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Post-2018 Senate shituation 15 states (Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2018 population: 40,056,961 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,335,232 people — 1 state (California) 2018 population: 39,776,830 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,888,415 people 19,888,415 / 1,335,232 = 16, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth 16 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 6% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2018 population = 573,720, therefore: 1 Senator per 286,860 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's © 2016 Kwiple.com
Power It was only after the major effort of the Second World War, when we found ourselves not presiding over a pacified and docile world, but engaged in a costly and indecisive struggle in Korea, that the American people first experienced the full reality of what all other great nations have known — the situation of limited power. Richard Hofstadter, “Goldwater and Pseudo-Conservative Politics” © 2020 Kwiple.com
Republican Party  If only the Grand Old Party were at stake, the nation could leave them to it. But no democracy can prosper long without two responsible parties. It is of existential import to the US (and to the world it helps to anchor) that Republican moderates prevail.  How tragic, then, that they probably won't. Their first problem is the depth and age of the internal rot. Republicans have to undo decades of flirtation with paranoid elements, not just five years' worth. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, January 12, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Republican Party Republican moderates are up against the structural vagaries of US politics.  The system's counter-majoritarian features allow the party to remain competitive and powerful without appealing far outside its base. … Wyoming’s 600,000 people cancel out California's 40m in the Senate. Nothing here is improper. The constitution was never meant to privilege raw tonnage of votes. But it does mean Republicans do not face the same incentive — moderate or perish — that  keeps parties honest in some other democracies. To get anywhere, reform-minded Republicans must petition their colleagues' consciences, not their interests. Even to write that sentence is to sigh at the hopelessness of the errand. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, Jan. 12, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Selfie I have little interest in streamlining  government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. Barry Goldwater, Conscience of a Conservative © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot To the millenarianism of the far right and the revolutionary nihilism of the far left he adds the deep cynicism of someone who has spent years running unsavory business schemes around the world. Trump has no knowledge of the American story and so cannot have any faith in it. He has no understanding of or sympathy for the language of the founders, so he cannot be inspired by it. Since he doesn't believe American democracy is good, he has no interest in an America that aspires to be a model among nations. Donald Trump portrayed by Anne Applebaum © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot  He loved nobody and nobody loved him. Donald Trump portrayed by David Frum © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Nothing in his presidency became him less than his leaving of it. Donald Trump portrayed by Janan Ganesh, January 5, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He needs two separate cars, one for himself and one for his hair. Donald Trump portrayed by Laura Ingraham © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Donald's ego has been and is a fragile and inadequte barrier between him and the real world, which, thanks to his father's money and power, he never had to negotiate by himself. Donald has always needed to perpetuate the fiction my gandfather started that he is strong, smart, and otherwise extraordinary, because facing the truth — that he is none of those things — is too terrifying for him to contemplate. Donald Trump portrayed by Mary Trump in Too Much and Never Enough  © 2020 Kwiple.com
Social media Social media companies' mistake has been to assume that  unregulated speech from powerful people is a hallmark of democracy rather than a threat to it. Emily Bell, Financial Times, January 13, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
< Trumpists say I'm not trying to get political here. Markwayne Mullin, Republican House member from Oklahoma, refusing to wear a protective mask offered to him while confined for hours in a crowded room with fellow congressmen during the assault on the Capitol © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  If we got to pick up arms again, we will. We will take our country back. We come peaceful. [But] if you don't want to listen . . . we won't be peaceful next time. We're tired of it. William Holmes, Ohio gunsmith, who attended Trump's January 6, 2021, rally in Washington, DC, with his wife  Quoted by Financial Times, January 7, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Let's make this clear. I'm not buying a fucking mask. I've made it this far by not buying into that damn hype. Richard “Rick” Rose, of Port Clinton, Ohio, who died two weeks after posting this to Facebook  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Nancy, Bigo was here, you bitch. The note left on Nancy Pelosi's desk by Richard “Bigo"” Barnett, Trumpist and self-declared white nationalist from Gravette, Arkansas, who reclined in her chair and propped his boots on her desk during the January 6, 2021, occupation of the Capitol  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The suggestion that there's going to be civil discourse in this country for the foreseeable future is over … it's going to be total war. I do two things, I vote and I buy guns. Joseph diGenova © 2021 Kwiple.com
 
Wannabe autocrats say I just want to find 11,780 votes. Donald Trump, pressuring Brad Raffensperger, Georgia's secratary of state, to overturn his loss to Joe Biden by 11,779 votes in Georgia in 2020 © 2021 Kwiple.com